It’s a new year, and I thought I’d lay bare the story of my past history here. I just thought it would aid in getting to know me a little better, and those of you who have read it before can skip it. 
My very early life wasn’t exactly problem-free, as I was at least nine or ten weeks premature. In those days, they didn’t have the awesome science and technology that’s available now. When I was born, I weighed two pounds and two ounces. I was an extremely small baby, and my mom tells me that everyone at the church was praying for me while I was in an incubator for a long time. She’d spend all day at the hospital with me, then my dad would stop by after work to visit. I finally came out of hospital when I was four or five months old, but still had problems such as jaundice and things of that nature.
Possibly because of my premature birth, I had a mild form of cerebral palsy which left me with a limp, and possibly bad vision. (my prescription’s currently over 1000, I believe) I didn’t learn to walk till I was four years old, so if you look at my family photo albums from that time, I can be seen sitting in strollers and high chairs when I was three years old. (it helped that I was of a small build then… not now, though)
If you looked at the family photo albums from that time, you will notice lots of pictures with me looking VERY closely at my finger. That was because I had extreme nearsightedness. When I was approximately eighteen months old, I got my first pair of glasses. (you should see those pictures)
When I was five years old, my baby brother came into the house. My mom tells me that when she was in the hospital to have him, she called me on the phone and I was crying and saying I missed her, and asking her when she’d get home. Once baby Jonathan came home, I wondered who was crying. I think I loved my new baby brother from the start. (and my sister now wonders why I like him better than her)
Life progressed pretty much as normal for me, then when I was six and a half, my baby sister arrived. By the time she got home, I thought that my sister would be a good baby like my brother was. Not really, as she was a loud one even at that tender age. When baby Stephanie got home, my brother was curious as to what this new… thing… was. He looked over, and made her cry. With that, though, our family was complete. (never mind the inscription in one baby card that my parents received: “Twins next time?”)
My mother had had two miscarriages in the interval between me and my brother, and has said to me that she wouldn’t have had Jon or Steph if those two hadn’t happened. Perhaps not, but who knows what surprises nature can bring you? She’s not the type to have an abortion, though… and neither would I be, if it came to that. (possible unwanted pregnancies)
I remember needing to have a brace on my leg for some reason when I was maybe nine or ten. Definitely wasn’t happy about it, and I remember asking my mom: “Why me and not the kids?” (my brother and sister) Probably because I was the one with the problem, not them. I don’t recall how long I had to wear it for, but it was sort of inconvenient.
Life went on as normal (Brownies, after-school activities, piano lessons, video games, wrestling, etc.) until I hit maybe age eleven or twelve. For some reason, I (and my siblings) always remembered getting whacked on the behind (or other places) with the gy-mo-so. (translation: feather duster, but the handle end) I remember telling the school counselor / social worker about it, with no inkling of how my parents would react when it got back to them. (I had no idea it would, actually) My parents tried to minimize it, and say that there wasn’t a problem with it. I think I subconciously knew there was one, so that must have been why I told her. (there was at least one time where I got spanked with a wooden spoon, though)
At around age thirteen or so, I started getting along less with my parents and family in general. Part of it was the normal teenage angsty thing, but another part was probably anger at something (God, perhaps) for my disabilities. There was nothing I could do about them, but I thought that I was somehow not good enough to be like everyone else. This wasn’t helped by the blows to my self-esteem I received at home almost every day, either. I’m not saying that my parents were totally in the wrong for all of this; but at the time, I thought they were mostly to blame.
I started to do really badly in school; not like I had done really well before, but I still remember my Grade 7 teacher’s comment to me when she was commenting on my report card. In Gr. 7, we had a few lessons taught by other teachers in the school, and I remember Science as being one of them. I was never much good at it, but received a C or a C- for my efforts one term. The teacher (Mrs. Pacheco) looked at that mark and commented, “He should have given you an F.” That wasn’t very good for my sense of self-worth. Then there was the time we had received our first-term report cards in Gr. 7, and I remember crying in the washroom because my grades weren’t good enough for my parents. Gr. 7 was a very bad year for me in that respect.
However, I did find out how much I liked band class; for me, it was an outlet and place where I could be with friends. I have happy memories of band trips and festivals, and smile whenever I think of those times. The junior high school music teachers would usually let us hang out in the band room at breaks or after school; I remember taking advantage of that many times, sometimes to play on the piano for my friends. That was one of the places where I felt accepted for who I was, not what I looked like or anything like that.
Around Gr. 8, I started to have a problem with what I now realize to be a form of trichotillomania. (compulsive pulling of hair) That has contributed to the way I look now, but at the time, I denied it. My mom said it was conscious, since I’d look at the hair after pulling it out. She even tried to make me sleep with my hands tied up. It’s not like I wanted to do it! Later on, I realized that I only did it while angry or stressed. I tried telling that to my mom once, and she came back at me with: “Why would you be angry at us? We’re your parents and family. Besides, you have nothing to be stressed out about.” Sure, Mom… whatever you say. (insert rolleyes here)
Junior high was kind of an okay experience for me. I didn’t get along any better necessarily with my parents, and I would run away a few times before I hit Gr. 10. (once having the police pick me up because they were concerned about me and such) My grades were okay, but there were some real stinkers of report cards with Ds and Es. Coming from a Chinese family where excellence at education was prized, I obviously didn’t fulfill that one very well. I remember a few years before quitting Chinese school in Gr. 8, my mom looked at a Chinese school report card I had (which wasn’t TOO bad, as I recall) and said something like, “I’m never going to talk to you again, you worthless thing!” (it sounds worse in Chinese)
Discipline at home gradually moved away from the business end of the feather duster to making me kneel down on the floor and holding my ears for as long as my mom wished. Definitely contributed to my lack of self-worth, dignity in the house, etc. Needless to say, I was in the school counsellor’s office a lot trying to talk to her about it. She was helpful, but couldn’t do a whole lot.
There was the time in Gr. 8 when I got my period in the middle of a crowded hallway at lunch. That was the most embarrassing moment of my junior high school career. When some girl said she’d called the counsellor (trying to be helpful), I thought the counsellor was going to call my mother and then I’d get it from HER! (by that time, I was pretty much resigned to the fact that whatever I did, I’d probably end up in trouble at home) The counsellor helped me out of that embarrassing incident, told me to go to Socials class (which I was dreading), and she’d call me when she got my mom on the line. After she drove me home, I asked my mom if she was mad at me. Surprisingly, she wasn’t. That was a certain relief.
In the last couple of months in Gr. 8, I got suspended for hitting another girl on the head with a field hockey stick during P.E. I was suspended for two days, and the principal told me that I was actually quite lucky, as the father of the other girl originally wished to press charges. I wasn’t feeling that lucky as I told my mom (who’d come to pick me up from school that day) that the principal wished to see her in his office. Yes, I was sorry that I did it, but try telling that to a very angry set of parents. I believe I missed an important (to me) Band practice, as I wasn’t allowed on school grounds. When I got back, my locker had inexplicably been tidied up. I don’t know who would have done something like that, but now I think they were looking for weapons or something inside the locker.
Speaking of lockers, I could never figure out how to unlock the combination lock, and so during the first few months of Gr. 8, I had to ask people around me to help unlock it. Another effect of that was that I’d carry around a big bag full of everything I needed for the morning / afternoon with me. That was bad enough, but then there was the time that my dad accompanied me to school and watched me unlock the locker and stuff. Definitely embarrassing to the teenage psyche.
In Gr. 9, I met two separate sets of friends named Nick and Paul. Nick K. and Paul M. were in Gr. 8, and Nick T. and Paul G. were in Gr. 9. Nick T. and Paul G. kept on teasing me about some crush I had on Nick K. That was true enough for a while, but I certainly didn’t have one on Paul M. But I got along with all four of them, or at least I thought I did. I saw Nick K. and Paul M. quite often in Band practices and all that, and Nick T. and Paul G. in classes and around the halls. (I even took to eating lunch with the younger Nick and Paul)
My friends at church were also people that could be counted on to at least listen to me. I’d see them a few times a week, usually at the weekends. We’d go out and have fun (sometimes I wasn’t allowed to go), Fellowship, and basically build our relationships. People that I’d known for a long time were particularly helpful when they listened to me talk about how things were going at home. At first, I thought they’d tell my parents, and then I’d be in for it. They didn’t do that at all, which was a relief to me. Word did travel around fast at the church, though… so on that score, I was sort of scared. But I never had any cause to worry.
So my friends at school and church were a welcome diversion from the increasing oppressiveness of my home life. Now, I realized that my parents were still together and I hadn’t had any tragedy happen in my life. I knew that I was quite lucky on that score, but I still regarded home as a place to escape from whenever possible. (or a place to hide in, if I could) Why didn’t I learn to drive? Probably because I can really only see out of one eye, and thought I’d be a hazard on the roads. I’d always told myself that I would before ICBC introduced these new rules they were always threatening new drivers with. It’s too bad I didn’t, really. But given the increased amount of traffic incidents and road rage and such on the roads nowadays, I’m sort of glad I didn’t.
Forgot to add that I had an operation done during my Gr. 9 year… missed about a week before the Christmas break and a bit afterwards too. It was to insert two rods inside my hips to make me walk straighter. Don’t know that it has helped immeasurably. When I got back to school, I had to use a wheelchair to get around. Hey, I got out of classes five minutes before everyone else, and it’s not like there weren’t other people in wheelchairs at the school. Then I graduated to using a cane to get around. It was hard trying to catch up with all the schoolwork and such that I’d missed, but I did it.
During that year, I went on a Band trip to Edmonton and Calgary. It was a very relaxing six days away. I remember going to West Edmonton Mall a couple of times, a few museums (like the Royal Tyrell Museum… devoted to dinosaur bones and such), playing concerts, and all these cool experiences. I’m not sure if I now have anything from that trip, since it’s been a very long time. But I have my memories. (going to the hotel, the attractions, etc.)
In Gr. 11 and 12, my relationship with my parents went steadily downhill. It had been bad before, but now it just got worse. They made me do a bunch of chores (which was par for the course), but I thought that they made me do a whole lot more chores than most others my age. It didn’t help that my mom was always saying stuff like, “Well, these people were cooking and cleaning for their family when they were twelve or so, and here you are at sixteen or seventeen years old, and the amount of work we ask you to do is very minimal.” It may have been, but I certainly didn’t view it that way. I helped my mom cook, but I must confess that I wasn’t much of a help. Domestic tasks are not my forte,
School wasn’t exactly fun, but it was better than home. I remember trying to fit into this new high school, but it wasn’t always easy with everyone already in their established “groups” and such at school. I had friends near my locker area that would help, like Ruth. I’d known Ruth for a few years already, and she was always very nice. (she was a year older than I was, but tried to help me learn the ropes) At lunch breaks, I’d wander the halls and outside, sometimes to the smoker’s area. I don’t smoke now, nor have I ever, but for some reason, I felt drawn to the area., Who knows why. It wasn’t TOO bad, though I still had people make fun of me for being different.
My church friends were, as ever, a great help to me. I think it was then that I truly realized what a great treasure I had in them. And yes, I remember some of the crushes I had on some of them. They did pass relatively quickly in some cases, but it was pretty good to have friends nearby to listen to you, or just to hang out with. Going to their houses and such for Fellowship functions became a way of life. (even though I’d always have to have a ride there)
(part two to follow after this post)
F_X